


Runaways

by amadridlover



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, because i miss xavi, because i'm sad about iker, i hate change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-08 11:59:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4304145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amadridlover/pseuds/amadridlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come with me,” Xavi tells Iker, thumbing his cheeks, kissing his lips softly, lovingly. Iker’s mouth moulds perfectly to his, and it feels right. <br/>Looking at him, he doesn’t see the usual lines on his face that are telling of the years they have spent together, the lines which Xavi would argue have prematurely graced the goalkeeper’s face from the pressure of their job. <br/>Xavi doesn’t see his friend’s hair as thinning. He doesn’t see his reaction times as slowing.</p>
<p>(Sometimes, he doesn’t see Barcelona without himself either.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is incomplete and it hasn't been proof-read (yet). I have a friend looking over it and I'll edit it as soon as she's done. I just felt like I had to post it what with the rumours that Iker is going to Porto (it hasn't been announced officially but everyone's saying it's a done deal). Ahh this makes me so sad. Hopefully it's not true!
> 
> This is a tribute to two fantastic captains. I love them both so much and Barca and Real Madrid won't be the same without them.

He looks around at the blue and red shirts, and one thing stands out at him, stark and bold; _youth._

“Come with me,” Xavi tells Iker, thumbing his cheeks, kissing his lips softly, lovingly. Iker’s mouth moulds perfectly to his, and it feels right.

Looking at him, he doesn’t see the usual lines on his face that are telling of the years they have spent together, the lines which Xavi would argue have prematurely graced the goalkeeper’s face from the pressure of their job.

Xavi doesn’t see his friend’s hair as thinning. He doesn’t see his reaction times as slowing.

 

(Sometimes, he doesn’t see Barcelona without himself either.)

 

He picks Iker up at ten o’clock sharp, frowning slightly at their fixed meeting time. It feels too definite, too unlike their former selves. When had they become so predictable? He grins as Iker sits in the passenger seat, throwing his travel bag behind him carelessly. He’s dressed simply, in black jeans, sneakers and a navy polo shirt. Xavi doesn’t think that much has changed, but he concedes that perhaps Iker’s dress sense is an exception. Xavi doesn’t complain.  

He turns his keys in the ignition. And he just drives.

 

They are approaching the outskirts of Madrid, and the traffic is starting to lessen now. The sky is dark but there is a kind of freedom found in it, its great expansion limitless. Xavi notices Iker is wearing sunglasses, hiding his eyes from Xavi’s inspection. He suspiciously scratches his cheeks, wipes at them. Some things always stay the same.

 

“Left or right?” Iker asks, as they approach an intersection. Left is the way to Salamanca, to the right is Barcelona. Xavi shakes his head.

“Neither,” he replies, choosing the road straight ahead. Iker barks a laugh out of nowhere, but ends it abruptly, his forehead creasing.

“We’re not going to France are we?” he asks him disbelievingly. Xavi smirks.

 

The Ebro river is browner than he remembers. He says as much to his companion. Iker opens his mouth to reply and Xavi kisses him, promptly shutting him up. Mischief lies in Iker’s eyes. Xavi licks into his mouth.

 

Iker snores lightly when he sleeps, his mouth slightly open. His arms are slipped into Xavi’s jacket, which is covering him like a blanket. He looks unafraid; peaceful. He’s cleanly shaven, his strong jaw defined by the shadows in the car. Xavi is reminded of a time in Portugal, all those years ago, with shy touches, fumbling fingers and searching mouths.

 

The wind shakes the car, pushing it slightly left. Iker is fiddling with the radio, muttering to himself. Xavi watches him, amused, as he struggles to choose between two stations. He was never this indecisive in his younger days. He used to know whether to stay on his line or come out and make himself big. (Xavi used to know how to be a central figure, complete a pass. Xavi used to know how to be first choice.) Iker looks at him, hopeless. For a second Xavi thinks Iker knows what he’s thinking, but he quickly dismisses the thought. He passes him his iPhone instead, signalling for Iker to plug it in. Iker rolls his eyes but follows orders, pressing the shuffle button. He smirks when Ronan Keating comes on. (Xavi thinks they have been friends for too long.)

Iker starts to sing and for the first time since leaving Madrid, Xavi considers driving back. (He doesn’t.)

 

They swap over at the next town and Iker sits in the driver’s seat, making a comment about short people and the seat being too forward. Xavi whacks him over the head, muttering something about a _smug_ _bastard_.

 

Xavi enjoys looking outside the window, and just observing. He loves the way things look when he is passing them at a high speed: how the dotted lines on the road become solid, how the red-and-white poles on the side of the road seem to blur when looking straight at them. He clicks his back teeth together every time he passes a pole, serving as some kind of unorthodox metronome. Really it’s just a way to pass time. For a few minutes, his timing is perfect. Then Iker sneezes, his face flushed from the effort. He is close enough that Xavi can see the little gap between his incisor and front teeth. Xavi is distracted.

 

They stop for a night in an unpolluted village, checking-in to what Xavi is sure is the only motel there. Their room has a window facing a pebbled road and a little bit further away, a grey church. An old lady with a kindly face shows them to her family-run tavern, smiling at them the whole time. The tavern is outdated but has a warm fireplace, which Xavi appreciates. They eat rice and beef and drink wine, keeping quiet, not wanting to disrupt the stillness that drapes over the entire village. Iker gives him a meaningful look, all the while pressing his leg against Xavi’s under the table.

In the distance, the church bell can be heard.

They fuck slowly, steadily, under the covers. Iker’s skin is pale in the moonlight filtering through the window, and Xavi wants to touch him all over, mark him as his. He grips his hips, traces his lips, mouths at his nipple, presses against his stomach until Iker unravels with a desperate gasp and a moan. Xavi swallows down his sounds, kissing him languidly, purposefully.

Iker’s body is sore the next day, and he groans as he gets out of bed. Xavi quirks an eyebrow at him. Iker only grins as he stretches out his tired bones, giving Xavi the perfect view of his backside. Xavi doesn’t find the way Iker’s muscles expand and contract attractive, he doesn’t. He also doesn’t ogle shamelessly at Iker’s tight ass, at his white, Madridista legs covered in bite marks and scratches. He doesn’t. Except that they don’t leave until an hour later, their faces flushed, hair tousled.  

(And Xavi doesn’t smirk when Iker grumbles something about not being able to sit down comfortably for the next week.)

 

They stop for gas at a run-down station in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, Xavi had his phone’s navigator on and it couldn’t even give him a name. A TV showing a sports talk show is in the corner of the shop, and Xavi feels self-conscious when he walks in to pay, worried that they’ll be recognised. He grabs two chocolate bars on impulse, placing them on the counter. The cashier scans them, uninterested in the two men. Just as Xavi is fishing out his wallet Iker takes a newspaper, placing it on top of the chocolates. The back page is facing up. Xavi frowns, pressing his lips into a thin line.

Iker shrugs his shoulders defensively, accompanied with a silent _what?_ Xavi only shakes his head. The cashier’s eyes widen but he doesn’t say anything.

 

It’s raining, pouring, and Xavi is reminded of the night before last. He had been talking to Carles on the phone.

(“What made you do it?” he had asked him, trying to sort it all out. He couldn’t imagine not being there, it had been his entire life all these years.

“Time,” Carles had replied in his simple way, not sugar-coating anything, the cliché not funny to Xavi because it rung so true. They had hung up not long after that, Carles nostalgic, Xavi bitter, their conversation hitting a little too close to home.)

 

It’s ten. Iker is looking at the clock on the dashboard with fixed concentration. His hands whiten against his thighs, as he grips them even harder. He hasn’t missed training since he started playing football, twenty-five years ago. Not unless he was sick or injured. Iker had never purposefully missed training.

One minute passed ten.

Iker looks at the clock hard, almost willing it to stop. It doesn’t.

He takes an unsteady breath, and then another, and another. The tenth breath is easier than the ninth. The eleventh is even easier.

 

They are parked on the side of the highway, behind a cluster of trees. The doors of the car are open and their seats are reclined. Xavi is looking at the stars and Iker is looking at Xavi. Iker keeps opening his mouth and closing it. He wants to say something but he’s not sure how to.

“What?” Xavi looks at him abruptly, his eyes black and piercing. Iker feels naked. He stays silent and Xavi doesn’t comment, turning his head back towards the sky. He thinks he can spot Aquila, or is it Cygnus? To be honest, Xavi has never been good at finding constellations, though it was something his father was quite passionate about. His mind was always distracted with images of Laudrup or Maradona, too much so to properly pay attention.

Iker follows his friend’s profile with his eyes, his thick eyebrows, his straight nose. Xavi is not someone people would call attractive, but Iker thinks there is something noble about his face nonetheless. There is an intelligence about him, a seriousness in his eyes. Iker knows just by looking at him that he cares, that he’s affected. Iker had always found him fascinating, and over the years his fascination had been transformed into deep need. To Iker, he is beautiful.  

He sighs, reaching out to find Xavi’s hand. He brings it to his lips, kissing the back of his hand gently, pressing his thumb into Xavi’s palm.

They had sacrificed so much, done everything they could.

Iker feels a deep pang in his heart at the thought of it being over.

 

By now, Xavi knows that they were found out. Firstly, it has been four days of missed training by Iker, and four days of complete disappearance by Xavi. Secondly, his phone is full of messages from Andres and Gerard, one from Leo, and the last five from Carles. He decides to turn his phone off again. Iker ignores his altogether. The end up fucking in the backseat, clothes still half-on. Xavi doesn’t find it comfortable. His back cramps the rest of the night.

 

“Do you think they care?” Iker asks, finally, not meeting Xavi’s eyes. They are in a town somewhere in Navarra, and Xavi hasn’t bothered to learn the name. The question doesn’t surprise him, he had been expecting Iker to say something. He couldn’t just ignore them. They probably had a constant presence at the back of his mind, their voices probably ruled Iker’s dreams. But it’s the way Iker asks the question that confuses him. They are the two captains, the two legends of their respective rivalling teams. They are simultaneously enemies and friends. They have both had challenging seasons, been criticised and picked apart until they’ve crumbled.  And they have just packed-up and ran. The press would be having a field-day. _Of course they care,_ Xavi thinks. He rubs at his cheek, smoothing it out with his fingers, feeling the skin stretch and even out. It’s from the way Iker is fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt, his eyes downcast, his bottom lip jutting out the slightest bit, that Xavi realises, a little belatedly, that that’s not what Iker means. Iker is really asking _will they miss us_ , and it feels like a punch to the stomach.

Xavi suddenly feels very old, as if he finally understands the consequences of his actions. He is leaving the club of his dreams, of his childhood, the club that has become synonymous with his name. Worst of all he doesn’t want to go.

He had responded quickly, having discussions with prospective clubs as early as the middle of the season, knowing that his time was running out, tired of the view from the bench. Xavi has always been a realist. Maybe he isn’t up to playing for the best club in the world, but he isn’t done with playing altogether. He has more in him.

(“Stay,” Luis told him, “you have another year in you at least”.)

 Xavi isn’t overly proud, but even he won’t stand by to watch the team he loves, the team he has been instrumental to for so long, move on without him. He has always believed that it is better to keep ahead of time, rather than chase it from behind, begging it to come back.  

Iker is looking at him with round eyes, focused in concentration to even the slightest change in Xavi’s face.

_It’s worse for him,_ Xavi thinks. Xavi has always had Andres, or before him Carles. Iker has always been alone, the sole symbol of Madridismo; the saint of Móstoles. At least Xavi was still wanted. Not for the first time he feels a type of hatred towards the capricious Madrid crowd.

(One minute hailing him, one minute hating him.)

Twenty-five years of service, and for what? To be booed and jeered, to be attacked and destroyed?

Xavi can sense the desperation in Iker, to know that it wasn’t all for nothing. That yes, they are leaving. They are listening to their fans, their critics, their clubs. But Iker needs to know that they will go into the history books, that they will be remembered. That they won’t be rejected entirely from the clubs they helped achieve glory.

He knows Iker hopes that someone, somewhere is sad at their decision to leave. (Xavi wants to tell Iker that he is that someone, but he doesn’t want to admit to doubting that leaving was the right decision.)

 

Xavi wants to return in a few years, it’s the place where he belongs. He wants to coach or delegate for the club in some capacity. Provide his services once again, when it’s all over. He’s glad Iker is with him for the time being. It’s nice to have him onside.

 

There is a storm and they lie down, tangled in each other, bare skin on bare skin. When Iker trembles in his sleep, Xavi presses his thumb against his heart, applying pressure. He doesn’t wake up, but stops shaking, and Xavi can breathe easy again.

 

Iker feels ashamed. Like he’s failed. He never thought he’d be pushed out of the club he loves. He did as they asked, because to him the club always comes first, above anyone else’s needs. (Definitely above his own wants.)

Iker needs to be loved once again.

Often the right thing to do is the hardest thing to do. Every kilometre they drive takes him further away from Madrid. If home is where the heart is than Iker is without a heart. He wonders how long he can survive.

He is throwing out a beer bottle he accidentally drops when he cuts himself on some broken glass. (His finger stains red, but Iker bleeds white.)

 

Xavi finds himself humming a tune as he’s driving, and stops, surprised. He thinks he knows what that means, but he isn’t sure. Iker’s face is pressed against the glass window, and Xavi feels guilty.

There is a small bakery along the road that looks deserted, but as Xavi drives closer he sees that it is open. They buy olive bread and sourdough and it tastes like heaven. The smell lingers in the car for the next few hours and brings a small smile to Iker’s face. Xavi feels victorious.  

 

Iker’s mood worsens. They’ve been gone for two weeks now, driving from place to place, never stopping more than one night anywhere. Xavi can tell Iker is troubled, and he wishes he could help him. Iker seeks redemption and forgiveness, something he can’t get from Xavi.

(Xavi is adamant that there is nothing to forgive.)

 

“Stop it,” he says into the still night, turning over in his seat to look at Iker. Xavi can tell from his smooth breathing that he isn’t asleep, Iker’s attempt too artificial. He doesn’t push him.

 

They reach a road sign and stop just before it. Iker can’t stop staring at it.

“Shall we –“

“Right,” Iker demands. His face is grim, his shoulders hunched.  Xavi presses on the gas and doesn’t look back. It’s too late. The words Madrid are etched onto his retinas. He understands Iker’s need. They both know he isn’t ready.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this written a month ago but I wasn't ready to let it go. (Much like my feelings about Iker and Xavi.)
> 
> All mistakes are my own.

They drive, and drive, and drive.

One of Xavi’s favourite things about the endless travelling from place to place is watching the sun rise, slowly at first until it stands bold and unbound in all its glory, proud in its place in the sky. Xavi thinks it’s strange, because he’s never given it much thought before, he’s always been more impressed by the stars. But when he really thinks about it, there are many stars in the sky.

(And there’s only one sun.)

It’s subtle, the way it creeps up on him, like an old friend. Xavi notices the warmth on his skin, the way it touches him (soft caresses and licks), covering him gently (loving him). It feels familiar.

 

Looking at the slowly increasing traffic, Xavi figures they are near Bilbao. He wants to avoid the city. Iker has been staring out the window for quite some time, lost in his own thoughts. His knuckles are white as he clenches his hands, making them tight fists against his legs. (It hurts.)

Xavi _knows._

 

They stop at a park. Xavi insists on getting Iker out of the car.              

They walk slowly towards a cluster of trees hiding one side of the park from them. Iker is quiet but Xavi thinks the fresh air is good for him.

Iker quickens his pace, and Xavi follows, eyes intent on his face, watching it for any sign of change. Iker’s breathing is loud, desperate in a way, and Xavi is glad they stopped. The car felt claustrophobic.  They are approaching the trees. Xavi doesn’t realise that Iker stops. He walks into him, stumbling slightly as he struggles to gain his balance.

“What the—“

Xavi stops at the look on Iker’s face. He looks beyond his friend and his heart freezes.

There, on the other side of the trees, to the far end of the green expanse, stands an empty goal.

Xavi isn’t sure how long they stand there looking at it. Iker turns abruptly and marches back to the car, Xavi following close by. He was wrong, this place is a personalised hell.

 

He wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what. Iker is too quiet.  He needs a response from him. (He’s scared.)  Iker’s face is blank, his eyes are hollow and Xavi doesn’t remember ever seeing him like this before.

He is pale. (More white than ever before).

 

Xavi wakes to a dull banging somewhere in the distance. They’re staying in the outskirts of Torrelavega, in Torres. He turns to reach out to Iker but the other side of the bed is empty. Xavi’s heart jolts nervously.

He gets out of bed quickly, and puts on his shoes. They hadn’t bothered with changing last night, Iker’s silent state too worrying, and Xavi had just lay beside him, holding him, giving him whatever warmth he could. _Iker is never cold_ , he had thought distractedly.

The flickering of the cheap bedside lamp creates a hazy film in the early morning, it all feels surreal, like a dream. Xavi slips out of the room quietly, looking left and right in the dingy hallway.

He finds him around the corner.

At first Xavi wants to yell out in alarm, but he’s frozen in some kind of horror and shock at the sight before him. Iker’s wearing a white t-shirt and yesterday’s jeans but what captures Xavi’s attention is the streaming red, red down his whole front.

Iker’s head hits the brick wall. _Once._ Then again. _Two._ And again, and again.

Xavi lunges down and grabs Iker by the shoulders, startling him, stopping his movement for a half-beat, but then Iker’s eyes glaze over and he returns to his rhythm. _One, two, three, four._

Blood is oozing from the side of his head but Iker doesn’t seem to notice. (That’s what scares Xavi the most.)

 

They don’t talk about it. Xavi tries but it only makes Iker defensive, pushing him further away, as if that could be a thing. The only thing Iker responds to is their gas-breaks, getting out of the car to pay for petrol. Sometimes he buys food as well.

It goes uneaten.

 

The road becomes an endless stream of grey, the towns blend into one-another. Iker doesn’t drive. He doesn’t talk much. Xavi turns to look at him every few minutes, unable to concentrate on the road in front of him. The radio has been off all day and Xavi doesn’t have the nerves to disrupt their silence. He glances at Iker again.

At their next stop, Iker sits in the backseat. Xavi feels defeated.

 

Dark clouds cover the sky like an oppressive blanket. Their spread is relentless, projecting their dull mood. It’s so cold and Xavi has to remind himself that somewhere beyond there is blue.          

 

When Iker closes his eyes, all he sees are flashes. His memories play back to him in random order: kicking a ball with Unai, winning the Club World Cup, training at Valdebebas, his last conversation with Aragonés, Xavi on the plane ride home from South Africa. There’s no logic to it, it’s just a constant stream of moments in his life, some clearer than others. They weigh down on him, and Iker feels like for once, he can’t hold them at bay.

He can feel Xavi’s eyes on him. He looks at him from the backseat, finds him in the rear-view mirror. (He is asking. But Iker doesn’t have an answer.)

 

Iker locks himself in the bathroom, gasping as he collapses onto the sink, gripping it desperately to keep himself up. He can’t breathe. For a moment, Iker thinks he’s dying. He swallows air, and sinks to the floor until he is sitting on cold tiles. He can feel his heartbeat, dull against his chest. He stays perfectly still, waiting for it to slow, to stop.

It doesn’t.

He opens the bottle of whiskey he had bought from the motel’s bar. Xavi is still sorting out the payment for their room, but he had let Iker go up, not noticing his detour. It’s been at least ten minutes, and Iker figures Xavi is glad to be away from him, glad to be having some kind of proper conversation for the first time in three days. He doesn’t blame him. He’s not surprised. Iker knows he’s unwanted. It seems that’s a popular feeling these days.

(He doesn’t understand when Xavi became distant to him. When had he moved on and left Iker behind? But they had always been different. Xavi was quick to anger, rash, brutally honest, and Iker envied that about him. It meant that he was always quick to forgive, to calm down after a fight. Iker was patient. He was careful and diplomatic, always a gentleman. Iker was doubting, over-analysing and over-thinking about everything. Iker needed reassurance.

He knows that Xavi has found a way to make sense of it all, he can see it in his smiles, in the smoothness of his brow. The endless road and travel and quiet has brought him enough distance that he can separate himself from it all. His logic-side has kicked in. Xavi knows how a legend is received at Barcelona; current or old. Xavi knows he has nothing to fear and that he has been entwined into the club’s history so deeply that they can’t take him out from it. His status is his power, and it is untouchable. Xavi knows he has nothing to fear.

And Iker resents him for it.)

His eyelids feel heavy, and Iker struggles to keep them open. His head is sore, his temples throbbing. Iker can’t stop the outflow. 

On the team bus. His famous save against Italy. Contract talks with Pérez. Xavi scoring against him in the 2010 Clásico. His last game with Getafe. Modelling the new kit. The fans’ boos.

He fumbles with the whiskey bottle, almost spills it with his shaking hand.

Iker _drinks_.

 

Xavi finds him ( _again_ ). His body is so lifeless that Xavi’s stomach retches, and he heaves his dinner into the sink. The smell is rank and Xavi’s head is spinning. He can’t see properly, it’s like he’s half-blind, seeing everything through a blurry lens. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

Xavi collapses to his knees, trembling. He crawls slowly, unaware of his movements, his mind—heart—only focused on one thing. _Iker, Iker, Iker._

He reaches out to touch his cheek and he cries out at the warmth. The dam walls crumble. Before he knows it he is sobbing, sobbing as he embraces Iker and holds onto him, holds onto him in his desperation and guilt and pain and relief.

Xavi can’t let go of Iker, and he can’t stop crying. (The broken bathroom door falls off its hinge and crashes to the floor.) Xavi holds Iker into the black night.

 

Iker _talks._ He doesn’t want to, and it’s hard at first, but Xavi forces him to. They are driving from Asturias to Galicia and the sun is out, barely, but even so it’s something Xavi is thankful for. He feels like he hasn’t seen it in years. Iker tells him about the newspapers he had been reading at every gas station, sometimes just the headlines, other times he would buy them and read them at night, hidden from Xavi. Iker shows Xavi the articles about him he’s kept and Xavi feels sick, like he’s been negligent, completely unobservant. (How did he miss this?) Iker doesn’t tell him how he feels, or what he was thinking, but Iker _talks,_ and Xavi thinks it’s a good start.

 

Xavi is sitting in the passenger’s seat, watching the fields go by. He turns to Iker and opens his mouth, only to close it again.

“What?” Iker asks him. His voice is quiet and Xavi feels caught out. He shakes his head when Iker looks over. He doesn’t have the right words for what he wants to say, perhaps a first for Xavi. (Some things do change after all.)

Xavi places his hand over Iker’s on the console. He squeezes once. Xavi thinks Iker understands.

 

If it came down to it, Xavi would never have guessed it would be that easy. Because it was easy. _Almost too easy,_ Xavi thinks.

Because they’re coming out of a small café frequented by men whose faces are covered in age-lines in a small village fifty kilometres from Salamanca and they see it. Some young kids with a football standing the street, wearing imitation Barcelona and Madrid jerseys with missing emblems and five stripes instead of three.

Xavi is reminded of a picture of blue and red and _youth._ (This time though, the hurt is softer.)

The boys are arguing about teams and players and scores. There’s also a girl. A tiny little thing with kind eyes and a sweet smile.

 

The boys choose positions and Xavi can see that they send her to goal—an empty space between two boxes against the brick wall of the nearby apartment. As she turns Xavi stops. His heart lurches from the catalyst of emotions that flood over him as his eyes glue to the back of her shirt.

_I. Casillas. 1._

Xavi can’t look away. The girl jumps, reaching out with a hand to tap the wall with her outstretched fingers.

And Iker laughs. (Later, he cries.)

 

The wonderful thing about the sun, Xavi thinks, is that it always comes up after going down. He finds it comforting that even when it’s cold, the sun is there, reminding him of its presence. He might not always be able to see it, but it is never very far, always fighting for its spot—for its moment of brilliance against the clouds and the alluring night. And that’s just it, really. Xavi welcomes the warmth and admires its resilience. The sun is singular: blinding in all its glory, undisputed and unchallenged in its place in the sky.

 

“Help me,” Iker murmurs, his lips ghosting Xavi’s ear, his hands tracing his arms. His skin is covered in a thin sheen of sweat, a natural lubricant—their bodies slide easily against one another. Iker trembles in Xavi’s arms, exhausted from being vulnerable. Xavi thinks he feels small, like he could move him any way he wants and Iker would let him. It shouldn’t feel as hot as it does. Xavi’s stomach tenses, his muscles clench visibly. Iker buries his head into his chest, kisses his soft skin with wet eager kisses, taking encouragement from his tightening grip. Xavi doesn’t think he can last much longer.

After, it’s silent and Xavi thinks Iker is asleep when he hears a quiet _thank you_. It’s so soft he almost misses it and he feels waves of usefulness and relief crash into him so suddenly his eyes feel wet and his heart squeezes. (They’re okay, _he’s_ okay.)

 

“What do you think of Porto?” Iker asks in a strange voice, and Xavi nearly misses the exit to Ávila. He doesn’t comprehend the question immediately and it takes him a while to respond. Iker’s looking at his phone, the first time in a month. He had charged it the night before, nervous at what was waiting for him. He has been reading the messages from his friends, his family, his teammates and club for the past half-hour and Xavi has let him do so without interruption. He was expecting the question, but somehow, it still catches him off-guard. The sun is bright in his rear-view mirror, and Xavi reaches down with his left hand between his seat and the console to retrieve his fallen sunglasses. He doesn’t want to influence Iker, though his heart is screaming one thing only, decided. He only wants what’s best for him, and sometimes that isn’t the easiest option presented.

Iker waits patiently, but he doesn’t fool Xavi. His body is tense, and Xavi knows he’s being carefully observed. It feels too soon, too fresh. But he smiles kindly, and reaches out with his hand to hold Iker’s. Because the real question isn’t what does he think, but what does Iker think.

Maybe Xavi still looks at him and doesn’t see him much changed, but Xavi’s never been objective when it comes to Iker. Or himself really. (Or matters such as time and youth.) And maybe that’s it and they have to give way to the tide. Xavi finds it a strange thought. He remembers when the tide used to wait for them.

When Xavi thinks about their lives, he sees Iker and himself as constants—they still want the same things, they’re still ready to do anything to ensure they achieve those things. The rest of the world, the exterior however is not so deep-rooted. But they can’t keep kidding themselves. They can’t expect the world to change for them anymore. They’re in their mid-thirties after all.  

But Xavi knows they can reclaim their control. They can fall in love with football once again and remember why they chose a ball and two goalposts over everything else. Xavi has to believe that. Xavi wants them to recapture the excitement and exhilaration of their younger playing days where they were unstoppable, invincible. He wants them to rediscover their youth, or at least, the one thing that brings them closer to it. Football, for the sake of football. Football for the love of the game. Youth and football are important to them both, not just for obvious reasons. Youth and football played a hand in _them._

Xavi looks over at Iker and he feels strangely content.  

 

It’s six-thirty-three and the roads are empty. Xavi’s hands feel cold against the steering wheel, his leg shakes in anticipation.

“Left,” Iker says, his voice sure. Xavi smiles. In front of them, the sun rises over the Bernabéu.

 

 

 

> “I hope this will not be a goodbye, but a see you soon. Visca Barca and visca Catalunya!" – Xavi Hernández, 2015
> 
> “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I'll never be able to forget you and you can be sure that wherever I end up I'll continue to shout: Hala Madrid!" – Iker Casillas, 2015

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Your comments/kudos mean so much to me, please let me know what you think. <33

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love <33


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